VMware did not disappoint! Finally NSX supports vSphere 6.5 and then some…

Yesterday VMware released both NSX for vSphere 6.3.o as well as the accompanying vCenter 6.5a and ESXi 6.5a.

Before upgrading your NSX environment to 6.3 you would need to upgrade your vCenter and ESXi hosts to 6.5a as describe in the KB 2148841

It seems there was a pretty good reasons for VMware holding out on NSX so long since they introduced a lot of great new features with just a fews standouts listed below:

NSX kernel modules now independent of ESXi version: This enhancement helps reduce the chance of host upgrades failing due to incorrect kernel module versions since every ESXi upgrade in an NSX environment required at least 2 reboots.

Rebootless upgrade and uninstall on hosts: On vSphere 6.0 and later, once you have upgraded to NSX 6.3.0, any subsequent NSX VIB changes will not require a reboot. Instead hosts must enter maintenance mode to complete the VIB change.

NSX 6.3.0 also checks for NSX readiness before taking a host out of maintenance mode

Controller Disconnected Operation (CDO) mode: A new feature called Controller Disconnected Operation (CDO) mode has been introduced. This mode ensures that data plane connectivity is unaffected when hosts lose connectivity with the controller.

Compliance features for FIPS, Common Criteria and ICSA.

Improved Layer 2 VPN performance: Performance for Layer 2 VPN has been improved. This allows a single Edge appliance to support up to 1.5 Gb/s throughput, which is an improvement from the previous 750 Mb/s.